Stories From Our Past — Week of Nov. 1, 2018

Each week, the Gazette looks back on stories from the past. Here is what happened this week, by year…

1938

– Local radio listeners were stunned while turning into H.G. Wells’ drama The War of the Worlds. Many felt there was a legitimate threat as Martians were attacking New Jersey. Much of the dramatic presentation based on a 1897 novel was presented as news bulletins.

– Picton council lacked a quorum for a special meeting to hear a proposal from Maygold Syndicate regarding natural gas sales in town. Two company reps had come from Toronto to make their pitch.

– Former Picton man Leslie Thompson invented a remote control to allow people to control their radios from up to 150 feet away. They could change between eight preset stations, control volume, or turn the device off.

1948

– A masked man entered Russell Gardiner’s grocery store on west Main Street around 10 p.m. Saturday evening and threatened a female staff member with “I’ll gun ya” and “Do you want to get hurt?” The man fled on foot. Police later arrested a local man for attempted robbery.

– It was expected around 100 people would receive summonses for not having 1948 radio licences after inspectors visited homes in Picton, Cherry Valley, and Milford. Suspects’ names would be sent to Ottawa to be checked against the register.

– W.M. Remington, of Adolphustown’s U.E.L. Cheese Factory, won the McFarland Gold Cup as the highest scoring cheesemaker in the Prince Edward district.

1978

– County farmers Rick Lyons and Larry Reynolds planned on taking their talents to Tasmania. They’d be responsible for a unit of five combines harvesting 8,000 acres of peas before turning to beans and corn. The men had hoped to make a little extra money during the Canadian winter months.

– The County’s planning board rejected the need for the Canada-Ontario Rideau Trent- Severn advisory committee’s land-use guidelines on the grounds property owners already faced enough restriction on how they could use their land.

– Picton’s public library board approved a proposal for the library to host a toy-lending program. The University Women’s Club of Picton was raising $750 to fund it.

1998

– Seventy employees at Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital were to vote on Nov. 13 about whether or not to take strike action in the Service Employees International Union’s contract dispute with the Ontario Hospital Association. Union officials said service disruption could take place.

– A dispute between two male visitors from Jamaica boiled over in Bloomfield. One man was airlifted to Kingston General Hospital with a stab wound while the other was arrested by local OPP officers.

– A prolonged police search for a missing Port Hope woman ended with the discovery of her body near Gull Pond two days after she was reported missing. Police believed the woman took her own life.